Wedding Dinner Tasting Question

laurabub

I have my tasting at my venue tomorrow night and I have a silly question.  Is it truly a tasting (like you only get one or two bites of each item) or do they serve a full item to each person.  ie: everyone would get a piece of chicken if that was one of the items we are tasting.  I know (and still might) call the venue to ask, but it is sometimes hard to get ahold of the event coordinator there.

TIA!  My FMIL was wondering if we should plan on getting dinner afterwards and I didn't know what to say!

Hilraythebride

I am not sure what your venue does but when we used to have tastings for the restaurant I worked at we would make enough for a few bites for each person. Depending on the dish sometimes it would be hard to make less than a full order (things like tuna or fish or half chicken), in that case we would put out the ful plate.

They may also put out the full plates so you get to see presentation.  They will most likely if they haven't already asked you to narrow down your choices to a few that you would like to try and go from there.

Enjoy!!!  Best of luck!!

Ash61612

I am going Saturday for our tasting so I am not any help. I would think it would just be a couple bites, not a full plate for each person.

Bejohnson5

I guess it just depends on your venue. Our venue does a big tasting event for all their couples a handful of times a year so we can go in and taste everything on their menus. But other places I've heard you have to let them know the dishes you want to try beforehand and those are the only ones things you get to try. And then you get one plate per person and just share/pass the different kinds around. 

calisel

When I told the event coordinator at our reception site, she asked for four options from the menu choice. She said that they give you a one plate tasting. Meaning all four items are on one plate to taste. It might be different where you are though. I would check with the event coordinator at your site or caterer.

Jean6912

Our tastings went as follows : They gave us a list of all of the choices they offer with like 8-10 of the hor dourves (for cocktail hour) circled, two pasta dishes circled, one salad, one chicken dish, one beef dish, one fish dish, and the sides that are going to be tasted. A platter comes with the hor dourves and there are usually 3-4 of each item for everyone to taste (depends on how many people are at the tasting). Then the salads come out (1 per person), followed by two family style bowls of pasta. The waiter then brings out a big platter with the main dishes on it, if it's just the two of us it's 2 pieces of chicken, 2 pieces of beef, and 2 pieces of fish. At the end they serve ice cream and coffee which we normally don't have room to eat!! Lol I don't know how your venue does it, but every time when we go for a tasting we are so overstuffed with food it's like a free dinner. Hope this helps, good luck and have fun!!!

Kfudge0714

Our tasting was a buffet of all the foods they offer. Everything was in smaller portions (but you could take as much as you wanted) It was still ALOT of food and we were stuffed afterwards!

lilmiss_34

As seen from just the few replies, every tasting is different and only your venue can tell you what is going to happen at yours.

Mine was a tasting for 4. A few days before, they asked us to choose 2 tasting options from each course we were having (4 courses, total of 8 options), as well as the hors d'oeuvres we wanted. We were given the assortments of breads for the table, and choice of red and white wines to approve.

They started with 4 of each hors d'oeuvre to be sampled.

Then, for each tasting option (8), they brought 2 full plates. So for each course, 2 people were served one option, and the other 2 people were served the second option. You could just trust the other taster's opinions of the dishes, but we opted to trade plates and have everyone try everything.

It was a HUGE meal! For us, it would have been a good idea to eat light all day and no one would even be considering eating another bite after the tasting. 

tgerl

We had a tasting for 2 and they provided the following:

Salads - we tasted 2 salads and had one small plate of each to share
Appetizers - we tasted 4 and they brought 2 of each type
Entree - for each meat, they brought out one piece of the meat and we split them (we tasted 4).  We also tasted 5 different side dishes and they brought one serving of each.

For the two of us, this was plenty of food and we were very full!  How full you get will depend on how many items of each type you are tasting and also whether then give you additional servings if you bring more than two people.

Have fun - we really enjoyed our tasting!

HarperBargo

As PP stated it really depends on your venue. I would ask your venue. Our venue told us it was a meal. We are also only allowed to have 2 people at the tasting for free. We would have to pay for any other people at the tasting. 

cfblechman

Our venue did like 6 appitizers for us to taste, one per person per appitizer. Salad per person and family style for the entrees. It was alot, but we still had room for dessert and we werent completely stuffed afterwards. But it was still a good size dinner.

midgedenver

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-club-boards_june-2012-weddings_wedding-dinner-tasting-question?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding Club BoardsForum:3ae4d68d-f10a-4dec-8810-da13c14a7b86Discussion:90837efd-2bca-4b2c-bc4c-cdee2a620a5dPost:c7d5ff2c-61f8-4a2d-ad79-a88919627784">Re: Wedding Dinner Tasting Question</a>:
[QUOTE]I guess it just depends on your venue.<strong> Our venue does a big tasting event for all their couples a handful of times a year so we can go in and taste everything on their menus.</strong> But other places I've heard you have to let them know the dishes you want to try beforehand and those are the only ones things you get to try. And then you get one plate per person and just share/pass the different kinds around. 
Posted by Bejohnson5[/QUOTE]

This is what our venue does, too. We're going Sunday for ours!

Jo&Lo83

Mine was a little different - we could only choose 2 meals, and couldn't have variance on the sides - the chicken came with mashed potatoes, veggies....pork came with others.  We got 2 full plates, and just had to pass it back and forth.  Kinda weird.  We basically just "picked" our 2 entrees, then got to taste them...seemed like kinda the opposite way a tasting should go in IMO.

SheilaDancer43

I'm a little late...but at my tasting they gave us about 6 of their appetizers to try about (8 pieces each), about 4 of their chicken entrée options (no sides), and we specially requested to try the Sea Bass since that's what FI wanted. (We knew we wanted a Chicken and a Fish, we don't really like Pork, so we didn't even ask to try it). I had FI, my mom, sister/MOH, 2 grandparents, and me there. Everyone got to try everything and we were all full afterwards. I'm sure every venue does it differently though. Like Bejohnson said, our venue does a big tasting for their couples one Sunday every month. We couldn't ever make it since we don't live there, so we just came and did a private one. My mom and dad did go to one without FI and I though, and they each "ordered" one thing and tasted it. So having a private tasting worked out better for us anyway because we got to try everything we wanted, instead of just one entrée.

MMRoberts11

I'm also a little late to this.  My venue has us pick what we would like to taste and then they do smaller portions of those items.  If we don't like those we would pick more and just keep trying stuff until we found something. 

laurabub

Thanks ladies!  I bet we will be full....we picked out multiple things to try so I'm sure there will be a ton of food.  I put in a call to the venue yesterday and am waiting to hear back from them.  Otherwise it will just be a surprise!  Thanks for sharing all of your experiences!

dellusion

Our tasting was set up buffet-style so that we could choose however much of each item that we wanted, although appetizers were passed, not buffet.  I think it worked out well that way.  They only had a couple items from their full menu that were not included.  My FI was sad because one of those was lamb and he really wanted to try that.